He's a Republican. And no, folks, it's not Dick Cheney. It's Myron Ebell. Who? For most people he's been invisible, an eminence grise, behind the scenes. So let's see if we can raise the curtain and see how he's become the most powerful, and scary, member of the global climate change deniers industry. According to The Washington Post "Exxon Mobil Corp., the highest-profile corporate skeptic about global warming, said in September that it was considering ending its funding of one think tank that has sought to cast doubts on climate change. That would be the American Enterprise Institute (also funded by the Scaife Family Foundation), that has been running around waving checks for $10,000 for any academic (or anyone, really) who is willing to squander his or her reputation to contribute to a nay-saying book on climate-change policy. (Lee Raymond is the vice chair of AEI's board of trustees, and ex-CEO of ExxonMobil which contributed $1.6 million.) This is just one more thinly veiled attempt to refute and undermine the Fourth Assessment Report on global warming by the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Issued in early February 2007, survey authors (2500) from more than 100 countries declared that they are at least 90 percent certain that human activity accounted for climate change over the past 50 years. Attempting to make the mad science of climate skeptics a free-speech issue, AEI President Christopher DeMuth sent out a PR release saying his group will continue to challenge orthodox thinking on climate change: "The effort to anathematize opposing views is the standard recourse of the ideologue; one of AEI's highest purposes, here as in many other contentious areas, is to ensure that such efforts to do not succeed."

February 27, 2007

Quickly getting out in front of the eco-parade, America’s leading energy companies came out on the side of the scientific consensus about global climate change in January. And they’re actually encouraging the Bush administration to cut greenhouse gases. Which puts Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) on the losing side of the climate deniers argument.
The Washington Post reported "Paul M. Anderson, Duke Energy's chairman and a member of the president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, favors a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas. His firm is the nation's third-largest burner of coal." Well, enough said. Oops not quite. Apparently, again according to The Washington Post, "Exxon Mobil Corp., the highest-profile corporate skeptic about global climate warming, said in September that it was considering ending its funding of a think tank that has sought to cast doubts on climate change. That would be the American Enterprise Institute also funded by the Scaife Family Foundation. (Lee Raymond is the vice chair of AEI's board of trustees, and ex-CEO of ExxonMobil, which contributed $1.6 million.)
Why now? The science hasn’t changed. The U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its report in early February. Survey authors (2500) from more than 100 countries declared that they are at least 90 percent certain that human activity accounted for climate change over the past 50 years. That's certainly clear enough.
The 4th Working Group, 2007 closely elaborates on the findings of the 3rd in 2001. They are more definitive about frequent and intense hurricane causation, sea ice melting, shifting ice sheets, particularly glaciers on Greenland, carbon emissions and rising sea levels, both of which are higher than their models predicted in 2001.
On Feb 18th, The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) said that global climate change was a "threat to society." Further, the world’s largest general scientific society said that concentrations of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were higher than they had been for at least 650,000 years and that temperatures were heading to "levels not experienced for millions of years." So perhaps the question should be, Has ExxonMobil changed? Perhaps.But for the past 8 years ExxonMobil has been notable for its far ranging financial backing of a collection of right wing kooks and nutbars in free trader "think tanks" which should perhaps be known as "don’t think tanks." ExxonMobil’s enthusiasm for funding their global warming disinformation campaign has been exceeded only by the vehemence with which they’ve resisted paying the Exxon Valdez $2.5 billion (on appeal) jury verdict and judgment. The lasting damage caused by the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill has polluted the mussel beds and stunted pink salmon populations, for as long as 30 years.

February 07, 2007

In September 2006, a post appeared at the Biting Beaver blog. In it, BB related her frustrated search to resolve a common problem: a broken condom. What to do? Now that it has finally passed political roadblocks, plan B promises, but is less than accessible for too many women in too many parts of the US. Dr. Bob’s suggestion:
To BB at bitingbeaver at yahoo dot com
posted by Biting Beaver | 8:27 AM | Comments (390)
How I fear for America. There is an option bb, in Canada, sadly too late for you, but not for others in the same plight. Go to www.planb.ca (the Canadian site of Paladin online drug store).
As noted, the drug levonorgestrel, is sold under the brand name plan B and since 2004 has been available at pharmacies across Canada without any prescription from a doctor. It's behind the counter so you'll have to ask the pharmacist for it. plan B is also available in most health clinics (CLSCs in Quebec). However, some pharmacists in some cities may refuse it, and they should be boycotted.
On (Paladin’s) site, you can use the Health Clinic Locator on the site to find a health clinic nearest you (in Canada) that carries plan B. There is also a 72 hour calculator....
BB is back posting today, February 7, 2007 and I wish her well. /B

January 26, 2007

Al Gore has won more wards this year than Jennifer Hudson in Dreamgirls. Now he’s been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Can anyone imagine that this is proper compensation for not being President of the United States? Free commercial: if you’re one of the seventeen people globally who don’t have An Inconvenient Truth either book or DVD, get it before Al wins an Academy Award Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. Then you can say Oh yes, read the book, saw the movie. So there, don’t you feel like, totally ecoconscious?

President Bush talks a good game about using ethanol (from farmer’s corn in Iowa: politics) for biofuel
but hasn’t talked about palm oil.
No palm trees in Missouri?
It's just as well, because in Southeast Asia, growing demand for palm has meant that huge areas of rainforest are being razed, both by treecutters and by chemical fertilizers. Why?
Energy companies in Europe recently decided to turn green and have built generators that run exclusively on palm oil.
In theory, that’s cleaner than fossil fuels In the real world, not so.
Because palm tree-gatherers are also burning off peat bogs to create palm oil plantations.
This is sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in massive amounts.
Care to calculate the carbon footprint?
Now Indonesia has moved up right behind the United States and China in producing
carbon emissions.
Are you carbon neutral?

December 23, 2006

The Abstinence Clearinghouse in Sioux Falls, South Dakota pushes abstinence programs. To encourage young people to aspire to abstinence, they're offering a Men's 14K Yellow Gold Rugged Cross Purity Ring from their online store, ("God wants him to keep the promise of chastity, so surprise a teenager with this polished purity ring") only $329.00. Or for the little lady chasteness-bound, there's a 14k White Gold Cultured Pearl and Diamond Ring, just $250.00. Call 888-577-2966 (orders only please) or 605-335-3643 now, to enroll your young 'uns. A sympatico program, the "Silver Ring Thing" had their $75,000 grant suspended last year because they somehow got ring sales mixed up in religious zealotry and were ordered to submit a "corrective action plan" by the Bush administration. Ahh, err, the ring goes on your pinky finger, boys and girls.

Planned Parenthood forecast the Bush Administration's long arm dipping into women's health way back in October 2003. And today that hand reaches as far as Uganda. Long claimed by right-wingers as the poster program for "abstinence-only", Uganda's First Lady Janet Museveni has disavowed early 90s successfull efforts. She and her husband had developed a comprehensive sex education program to prevent AIDS, but now she is going where the money is. She has "close ties" to the Virginia-based Children's AIDS Fund, which was recently approved for a major abstinence-only grant, despite having been deemed 'not suitable for funding' by a technical panel of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The US budget for abstinence-only programs in Uganda is now $8 million.

Last week it was Keroack and his oxytocin theory of love potion #9. This week it's Wade Horn. talking up abstinence for unmarried under-29s. The HHS $50 million in Title V funds go to the 46 states who cravenly promise to barr teachers from discussing contraception and require them to say that sex within marriage is "the expected standard of sexual activity".

Representative Mark Souder (R-IN).Chairman of The House Committee on Government Reform has released a new report, "Abstinence and Its Critics". It is a retort to "The Content of Federally Funded Abstinence-Only Education Programs", prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-California), in December, 2004, which was endorsed by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Tell me why men think they have to protect women from themselves?
Newsflash; New report here from Souder in October 2006, The FDA and RU-486: Lowering the Standard for Women's Health. Say, he is rabid, isn't he?

Yes, they said it. "But unlike abortion today, in most states even the slaveholder did not have the unlimited right to kill his slave."
- Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), comparing slavery favorably to abortion in his book, It Takes a Family, AP, July 6, 2005. Not re-elected November 7, 2006.

Headline: Use of Unlicensed, Highly-Concentrated Botulinum Preparation for Cosmetic Injections Can Result in Severe, Life-Threatening Illness. An examination of 4 cases of botulism following cosmetic injections to the face indicates that these adults received a highly concentrated, unlicensed preparation that resulted in serum toxin levels 21 to 43 times the estimated human lethal dose, according to a report in the November 22/29 issue of JAMA. Botulism is a rare paralytic illness caused by the toxins of the spore-forming bacterium Clostridium botulinum and toxin-producing strains of Clostridium baratii and Clostridium butyricum. Botulism, left untreated, may result in respiratory failure and death. And just when I was looking so great.

Social conservatives see an opportunity to test Democrats' evolving position on abortion, a position that has become more amenable to incremental curbs on ending pregnancies and more vocal about reducing the number of abortions. Under Republican control, Congress passed a ban on the late-term abortion method called "partial birth" abortion by its foes and passed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which increased penalties for crimes that harm a fetus. The Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act 2005, that would declare that fetuses feel pain and require abortion providers to offer pregnant patients anesthesia for their unborn child was defeated in a House vote on Wednesday, December 6, 2006.
Mouthpieces of the right:
"The Democrats are facing an interesting situation because they ran to the right in this election," said Wendy Wright, president of the conservative group Concerned Women for America. "They promised one thing to America with their campaigning. The question is, will they live up to that image? Running and hiding is not a solution."

(1) To examine a 'breast implants and suicide' correlation, the University of Laval, Faculty of Medicine and the Public Health Agency of Canada looked at 25,000 women, with transplants from 1974 - 1989. They found the suicide rate among women with breast implants is 73% higher than in the general population. Previous studies have observed that the psychological profile of women who receive breast implants is characterized by low self-esteem, lack of self-confidence, and more frequent mental illnesses such as depression.

In the Institute for Youth Development "peer-reviewed" study published in their very own Adolescent & Family Health, girls who participate in the Best Friends abstinence program are substantially less likely to use drugs or engage in premarital sex than peers who are not in the program. Not surprisingly, it also found many extraordinary results among the Best Friends' high school participants, known as Diamond Girls who were more than 100 times less likely to engage in premarital sex than high school girls who were not in the program, said study author Robert Lerner. Best Friends, which has a three-year federal abstinence-only-until-marriage grant from the federal government, does not teach girls about contraception.

David Frum, whose 'axis of evil' scripting probably got us into the Iraq War, has pontificated once again. This time in National Review he ponders Dr. Keroack's appointment to HHS, where they spend $280 million per year to "provide access to contraceptive supplies" and since anyone can run down the street to just any drugstore in Georgetown, and pick up 25 safes costing but a ten-spot, "why do we need a ... chief administrator?"

NCIPC studies estimate that at least 15 -20% of women are subjected to intimate partner violence (IPV). The need for screening for IPV in healthcare settings has gained increased attention, but researchers and professionals have been divided on the best way to screen and identify victims of IPV. Some women have been more responsive to self-administered methods, including written or computerized questionnaires. Others seem more likely to disclose IPV when directly asked by a clinician.